My Anxiety Journey

How did I first ever suffer from anxiety?

My introduction to panic and anxiety happened when I was younger and started taking soft drugs. I thought I knew better and believed they would do me no long term harm. How wrong I was!

I had just started a new job when I first experienced an attack of panic. My whole body went funny and I could not think straight. I just felt a strong urge to get out of the room. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I ended up making excuses to leave my workplace that day and go home. I then spent the rest of the day pondering about what had just happened.

I said to myself, "Well, OK, I don't know what happened there, but hopefully it was a one off." No such
luck; I went on for a few weeks like this, spending so much time worrying about what was happening to me and why I felt the way I did.
As time went by, I began to develop constant anxiety. I now realise this came from all the worrying about my original feelings of panic. All this worry led to so much extra stress
that I was left in a constant state of anxiety alongside my feelings of
panic. Around this time, I had a breakdown. I just could not understand or take in what was wrong with me. This is when depression and feelings of
'not being with it' occurred. My mind seemed to race and my thoughts
became distorted. I felt like I was somewhere else, as though I was
living in a dream world, along with losing my whole personality and sometimes my mind. It was at this point that I first went to see my doctor.

If you read my book, it will tell you where I went from
there; and after you have read my home page, you will know that I did go on to fully recover. Even through all those dark days when I felt that I just did not want to be here
anymore, something inside me told me that I would find a cure and I would get better. No matter what it took, I believed there must be an answer out there. I was never going to become another
statistic; I wanted my life back and I was going to find out everything I could about this condition to make this come true.

Where am I now?

I am now fully recovered and a much stronger person for it. Little trivial things do not bother me anymore. It has made me realise what is important. Life is a gift and we should enjoy it. I am also more confident than I was before. When you have been through what I have, you become a much stronger person.

I no longer worry about anything. If there is one thing that anxiety teaches you more than anything else, it is that worrying is the most destructive,
pointless and counter productive thing you can indulge in. My life is so much different now and I try to live it to the full. I wasted so many years and now I feel it's time to catch up.

I also left my mundane job so that I could dedicate all my time to helping other sufferers around the world. This gives me a great deal of satisfaction and can be very rewarding. The first thought that came into my head when I had recovered was that I could go on to help others. I knew how long it took me to find the answers that I so craved. Could I just carry on with my life and ignore other people's suffering? The answer was a definite no. I have helped and advised more people than I
can remember and it has been so rewarding.

Although the site has grown far bigger than I ever thought possible, the people who know me know
that I do as much as I can to help others. I post on my personal
Blog and Facebook page as often as I can, and raise money and awareness for trusted,
non-profit making anxiety sites.

I also write many articles on the subject for websites and I am always given
the option to choose in which category I wish to enter my work, but anxiety or panic is never there. Every other medical condition appears, so why not this
subject? Until we can bring more awareness to the subject, I feel we will still get forums and doctors' surgeries full of people crying out for help and so much needless suffering through lack of information will continue.

Hopes for the future.

If setting up this website and writing the book helps people recover and live a better life, then it will all be worth it. My aim is to hopefully step in and teach people more about anxiety and the way to recover, before they spend years going round in circles like I did, unable to find answers to their condition. My anxiety condition became worse over the years through receiving bad advice from so called specialists who knew very little or nothing about the
subject and where the answer was either a new tablet or
technique. I also spent more money than I care to remember on so called cures, going from one let down to another. Is it any wonder many feel so hopeless and alone?

Something that really bothers me is these people who offer miracle
cures. They charge the earth and have no information on their site. They just set up a big sales page and prey on
people's desperation for a quick fix. I also fell into the trap of parting with my money to these people, who offer nothing but false hope. The first thing people tell me after reading
my book is that they fear their symptoms far less, they don't seem as important. This is because they have for once been given an explanation
for how they feel and so their symptoms do not scare them as
much. This in turn helps stop the constant cycle of worry and fear
which is all the fuel anxiety needs.

I hope one day this information will be available for people
when they first seek help, rather than having them feeling like they are being ignored or pushed from one person to another. I have lost count of the number of emails
I have received from people asking why this information is not available when
they first seek help? "Why are we just given pills and told to go on our way?",
they ask. I don't have the answer to this question, although in defence of the medical world, anxiety really is a
specialised subject and they are just not equipped to help in most cases.

Please tour the site

Now that you have landed on my site, do take the time to look around.
It was set up to help people and to give them new hope and a better understanding of their condition. If you are a first time visitor,
please keep popping in as I will keep updating it when I feel it
is necessary.